'Intelligent' slime able to navigate its way out of maze

By Danielle Demetriou

Toshiyuki Nakagaki, a professor at Future University Hakodate, northern Japan, cultivates the slime in petri dishes and has discovered how the brainless organism is capable of finding its way out of a maze.

The brainless organism is able to “organise” its cells to create the most direct route through a maze in order to reach a source of food, according to his studies.
The findings highlight how slime mould possesses information processing abilities shared by humans which are more sophisticated than the most advanced computers, according to Professor Nakagaki.

"Humans are not the only living things with information-processing abilities," he said. "Simple creatures can solve certain kinds of difficult puzzles. If you want to spotlight the essence of life or intelligence, it's easier to use these simple creatures."

Slime mould, a monocellular being that lives on rotting leaves and does not possess a brain, may not be the obvious subject of scientific research in relation to intelligence.

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